


Hold my life against your lips

by oceantears



Series: Five plus one (six for gold) [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Caring, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flower seeds, Fluff, Friendship, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Kissing, Platonic Relationships, platonic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2019-06-24 13:25:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15631566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceantears/pseuds/oceantears
Summary: To Natasha, kissing is a coping mechanism, a comforting gesture.Or: The five times Clint kissed Natasha plus the one time Natasha kissed Clint.





	1. Knuckles

**Author's Note:**

> _Written by me._  
>  English isn't my first language, please tell me where I made mistakes!  
> All the chapters will be short and (bitter)sweet, and I really hop you enjoy them! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated.  
> Have fun!

**i.**

Natasha is in the training room, throwing punches at the bag, feet dancing to avoid being hit by it. She is concentrated and breathing hard, and her open knuckles tell Clint, who’s just entered the training room, that she’s been doing this for a while now.

For a moment Clint just stands at the door and watches his friend hitting the bag over and over again. He doesn’t know why she chose the punching bag, usually it’s mainly Steve’s way of working out, not hers, and he has the impression that something is off.

Clint stands there for a while, watching and admiring the way Natasha strikes the bag, again and again and again. He watches her throwing punch after punch, feet quick to escape from being hit, breath loud and audible in the otherwise silent room.

 

Then, after fifteen minutes, Natasha stops and steps back, taking a sip of water out of her bottle, and she looks at Clint. Her breath sounds different than usually. While it she pants a little from having worked out for the past few hours, there’s also something else in her breath that tells Clint something is off.

He walks over to her and sets the water bottle aside, taking her hands into his.  
She’s watching him closely and he makes sure he keeps his eyes trained on hers as he bends his head and brings her hands up to his mouth, pressing a light kiss on every battered knuckle.

Natasha looks at him wordlessly as Clint kisses her knuckles and all of a sudden breathing is easier than it was before.

When he lifts his head up again she nods, the hint of a smile curling around the corners of her lips. Then she turns and goes back to punching the bag, although with a little less force than before.

Clint smiles and leans against the wall again, admiring her technique once more.


	2. Nose

**ii.**

It’s well after midnight and there’s a knock in her ceiling.

Natasha sighs, looks up and calls out: “Come in, Clint.” Feet appear, then legs and a torso, and shortly after, Clint Barton drops out of her ceiling vent, a ridiculous smile on his face and his hands behind his back. “How did you know it was me?” he jokes and Natasha rolls her eyes in response. 

She goes to the kitchen and Clint follows her, watching as she pours tea into a coffee mug. When she sits down at the table, he slides in the opposite chair, still with a bright smile on his face and pushes a small, wrapped present over the table in her direction. She raises an eyebrow and stares at it warily. “It’s not gonna explode, is it?” Natasha asks in a dry tone and Clint shakes his head. “Open it!”  
She takes the present into her hands and unwraps it carefully.  
It’s a small present and the unwrapping doesn’t take long. When she finally holds it in her hands, her eyebrow raises once again, as she eyes the see-through plastic bag. “You bought me flower seeds?” she asks, with an incredulous voice. “Yep!” Clint smiles, pointing at said seeds. “Those are Eschscholzia Californica seeds. I stumbled over them when I was out to buy a new T-Shirt and they were the seeds with the strangest name in the shop so I bought them. As a gift.” 

 

“Thank you”, Natasha deadpans, taking a sip of her tea. “I’ll make sure to inform you when they have blossomed.” Clint just grins and looks at the flower seeds. “I wonder how they look when they blossom. I didn’t look at the picture; I just bought them because of the name.” 

Natasha rolls his eyes and stands up, nudging his leg with her foot. “As thankful as I am for your gift, I want to go to sleep, preferably without you in my apartment.” Clint nods and goes in the direction of his ceiling vent, smiling when they stand under it. “You’re welcome. From now on you can just call me whenever you want flowers with exotic names.” Natasha shakes her head and smiles a bit. “As if I ever would.”  
Clint grins in response and leans down, placing a soft kiss to the tip of her nose. “Goodnight, Tasha! Inform me, when they blossom!”

 

And with that he’s up in the vent again, out of her sight. Natasha turns around and goes back to the kitchen, picking up the seeds and her tea and then she returns to her bedroom. She carefully places the small bag on the night stand, putting her tea next to it and takes her book, opening where she stopped the last time as she crawls into bed.

 

Before she starts reading, she looks around her room, scanning it and wonders where a good place for flowers might be.


	3. Shoulder

**iii.**

Natasha wakes up because Clint’s sliding into bed next to her.

She sits up quickly, both her hands coming up, the one holding her knife closing around his arm, the other clasping over his mouth. It`s an automatic reaction but even when she recognizes who`s in the room with her, she doesn`t let go.

“What are you _doing_?” she hisses at him, her hold tightening around his arm in a nearly painful matter. He simply looks at her, tired and annoyed and licks her hand. 

Natasha is _very_ tempted to punch him for that, so she does. Hard.  
A muffled yelp escapes Clint’s mouth and Natasha shoots him a quick grin before she uncovers his mouth and loosens her grip on his arm.  
“What do you want?”, she asks, sitting up, letting the blanket pool around her legs.

A quick glance at the clock tells her that it’s half past two in the morning and as far as she knows there`s only one good, reasonable explanation for Clint`s appearance in her bed.  
“I can’t sleep”, Clint whines, lying down next to her, pulling the blanket over his legs. Natasha`s glare softens a little. “Nightmares?”, she asks and allows him to take a little more of her blanket.

He shrugs and avoids her eyes which Natasha takes as a definitive yes. She sighs but lies down next to him anyway, facing her tired friend. “I`m sorry”, she says. “Do you want to talk about it?” Clint closes his eyes and shakes his head. “No, I just want to sleep here, if that`s okay. I don’t want to be alone at the moment.”, he murmurs and Natasha smiles at him, a small, real smile. “It is okay”, she tells him, “But for the record, be a bit more careful the next time you come into my room at night like that. I nearly stabbed you.” 

Clint opens one eye at that and sees her slide the knife she was holding under her pillow once more. He doesn`t say anything however, just nods softly. 

Natasha turns around, her back now facing Clint and whispers goodnight. Clint doesn’t respond but she feels the slight pressure of his lips on her bare shoulder and smiles a little.  
Then she closes her eyes and allows herself to fall asleep with the sound of Clint`s deep breaths behind her.


	4. Forehead

**iv.**

Clint`s shooting arrows. One after the other they hit the four targets in front of him, all perfectly in the centre. Clint is standing still, breathing out when he lets go of the arrow, breathing in when he reaches behind him to retrieve another one from his quiver.  
He`s been doing this for nearly an hour now and he has yet to grow tired of it.

Natasha has been watching him from a corner of the gym, sitting quietly, not disturbing him, and idly playing with a knife.

Now she stretches, stands up, makes her way over to her friend. “Want to grab something to eat?” she says, not really expecting an answer. To her surprise, she gets one, a shrug and a half-smiled “Sure.”

Clint`s moving now, shooting the last arrow, taking off his quiver, putting his bow back where it belongs. Natasha walks over to the targets and retrieves the arrows that are stuck there, one after the other. She places them in Clint`s hand, who`s come up behind her and watches him stow them away.  
Then she joins him as he makes his way to the door of the gym, her hand slipping in his, when he offers it.  
She leans on his shoulder for just a moment and gets a slight squeeze of his hand in return. Together, they go to the door that exits the gym and before they leave the building, Natasha stops briefly.

“You feel better than yesterday?”,she asks, looking her friend in the eyes. Clint nods, shifts a little on his feet. “Yes”, he says. It is true; sleeping next to Nat has kept the nightmares at bay.

Natasha nods, too and smiles. “Good”, she says and closes her eyes when Clint bends down and plants a soft kiss on her forehead.  
When he straightens again, she asks: “Where would you like to go? There’s a good restaurant just a few streets from here.” Clint shrugs and smiles at her. “We can go wherever you want, Nat. You`re paying, though.”

Natasha shakes her head in a dramatic fashion as she pushes the door open. When they step outside, and the sunlight hits them, she asks “Have I ever _not_ paid?”

The only answer she gets is Clint’s laughter.


	5. Neck

**v.**  
Natasha is wearing one of Clint’s t-shits, which is too big on her slender frame. She’s got her knees pulled to her chest and is sitting on the floor in Clint’s apartment, reading a book. Her head is bowed slightly, in order to give her best friend better access to her hair, which he is braiding with quick, careful movements.  
It is already the fourth braid Clint has woven in to her hair that night but neither him nor Natasha have tired of it yet. Natasha enjoys the feeling of his hands in her hair, his finger’s movements are like a massage and it feels good to be able to let her guard down and relax with a friend.

Neither of them are talking though Clint is humming quietly, concentrating on her soft red hair in his hands. He has always enjoyed braiding hair and trying out different styles and is happy that Natasha lets him experiment on her. Not that one would know he was only experimenting – his braids look beautiful and professional.  
Sometimes, Natasha thinks that he did miss his opportunity to be a hairstylist. 

Clint pulls on her hair slightly and she tilts her head back, leaves him to finish the braid. Her eyes slip closed and she allows a soft smile to creep onto her face. Clint’s hands weave gently and she feels relaxed and safe with him.

He ties the complicated braid with a black hair tie and bends down to softly stroke her neck. Then he plants a kiss on it, signalling her that he has finished. There is nothing even remotely sexual or romantic about the gesture, it is merely a simple way to convey feelings of friendship to them, as well as a sign that it is time for Natasha to stand up and admire Clint’s newest creation.

Which is just what she does. And as she stands in front of the mirror, him behind her, she allows herself another small, true smile and leans against Clint.

For now, she is happy and he is, too.


End file.
